I’m as tired as you are of hearing the news of school shootings. I spent over 14 years as a high school history teacher in a public school in Connecticut only about a half-hour from Sandy Hook Elementary. We all know that name where so many children were killed and it seems like each school murderer tries to outdo the next. I don’t like calling them school shooters as it takes away the violence and intent of their actions. Shootings can be legal or illegal but murders are always illegal and we can’t forget the gravity of murder in our schools. These mass-murder events follow a cycle. There is the initial shock, a brief period of discourse, politicians grandstanding for votes, and then nothing happening to affect better security. All the while when I taught social studies, I also trained at numerous firearms training academies and with some of the finest instructors around. I trained in martial arts (Filipino martial arts, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Western Boxing) and learned the basic concepts that apply to fight math and protection. I have a very unique perspective on how to address these events but if my ideas aren’t followed up with action, they exist only as ideas. Unlike many politicians that will say “if we could only save one more child…”, these ideas can save more.
Just like proper education, it takes more than teacher and student to make a difference. In the educational space, there is always a reference to the “school community” and how it takes a team of teachers, parents, students, and school leaders (admin) to help a child succeed. As it stands, the current training for mass school murders is substandard. Lockdown training and sheltering in place aren’t working. Your average teacher is underprepared to address an individual intent on committing murder. School systems are reluctant to spend money on building redesign and teachers are generally hesitant to stress inoculate themselves to the sound of blank-round gunfire during in-service training. Vigilance helps in some circumstances but there are too many onlookers who are afraid of being labeled a “snitch” or “tattletale” and they say nothing. We know firearms legislation will not stop many murderers since they will murder to acquire a firearm and disregard the gravity of breaking a law to break others. With an understanding that current actions, or inaction, are not enough, we must shift focus and work smarter together, truly together. Here is what each member of the school community can do.
Parents
Raise your children right. Teach your children right from wrong and be involved in their life. Know your kids’ friends, and their friends’ homelife, and monitor what they are watching and learning from. Start a conversation with your kids’ teachers about what the plan is for a mass murder event. Ask to see your kid’s or kids’ classrooms and take mental notes of what you see. Discuss where the safest place is for your child in an event like this or if it makes the most sense to run from the classroom and out of the building. Even though the school system will advise against disregarding the standard operating procedures for the school, you and your child need to decide what is best. Perhaps leaving the building is the answer. Also, lock up your firearms. In at least two mass school murders (Sandy Hook, CT, and Uvalde, TX), the killer murdered the firearm owner and stole the firearm. Make sure your firearms are secured and the keys are truly hidden. Be involved and fundraise for your child’s school to pay for increased security measures. While not preventative, you can also fundraise for tourniquets and response gear if your school doesn’t have them yet. If you want to know more, I’ve led two successful campaigns and am happy to jump on a call with you.
Teachers
Your responsibility is to protect your class. First and foremost, pay attention to your students. Don’t just focus on their grades but their mental health. Listen to what they say and how they say it and look for the warning signs. You can take steps within the law and school policy to create better security measures for your room. Look at your door. Does it swing in or swing out? What can you put in front of the door to slow the progress of a killer? After Sandy Hook, I went to a hardware store and purchased a chain that I looped around an exposed beam in the classroom and through the door handle. I showed my students how to snap it in place if I were absent or out of the room. You can make a “no go” line on the floor that visually represents where the students can hide from the line of sight of a killer. You can set up a “drop cloth” or a curtain to conceal the location of the classroom occupants. Your ultimate goal is to get the murderer at your door to struggle to get in and ultimately move on. You must control that space and extend the time they need to gain entry to make them frustrated enough to abandon their efforts. Additionally, you can keep a hammer in your classroom for installing nails on the back wall if you catch my drift. If you can legally carry defensive tools, you should. Your state may prohibit this but you may be able to find solutions without breaking the law. I wouldn’t recommend breaking any laws as it can lead to losing your livelihood and I’m referring to being armed with certain weapons that are written about in your handbook. I would recommend pressuring your union officials to make changes. Perhaps that means adopting laws for teachers like those we have here in Utah. Encourage the principals to advocate for armed school resource officers at the very least. Learn how to communicate effectively as well during a crisis situation and control the flow of information in your classroom as the murderer may be taking cues from social media feeds.
Students
Even students have the ability to change the outcome of a school mass murder. Students can learn to identify what the signs are of troubled individuals. This is not the same as glorifying the actions of past evil-doers but rather shaming them. We can’t hide students from the reality of what victims look like. They must learn their inaction will leave blood on their hands. The same way students are put into an uncomfortable position seeing the actions of drunk driving before the prom, students can be taught what a school mass murder event looks like. Students can also be taught how to perform first-aid and be given stop-the-bleed training. They can also learn how to help the teacher jam the door with any number of widely available commercial door jams and reinforcements. Students are excellent at documenting their lives on social media and those who are brave enough to report wrongdoing can be rewarded if it prevents a mass murder in the same way there is a reward for turning in poachers on the wildlife conservation side of law enforcement.
Superintendents/Boards of Education/Politicians
While it takes a community to create a safe place for students, these actors can have the greatest impact. Many of these suggestions come from superintendents, board of education members, and politicians but as is often the case, they are quick to promise but slow to act. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has commented that before school “shootings” the most prevalent cause of death in schools were fires. It took significant funding and redesign to install sprinkler systems and fire alarms but since then, fatalities from fires are essentially a non-issue. When politicians complain about not having funding, they must re-evaluate what the existing funding is for. Is it allocated for want or a need? Security is a top survival priority and a need. It is also a priority for education. We can’t accept the excuse “there isn’t enough money” when there is. We must urge reprioritization. These community members can advocate for a security corridor for each school with dual entrance doors that must be entered after screening. If a threat is identified, the corridor can be locked down and the threat isolated. In addition, they can improve the training teachers receive from an in-service that lets teachers check the box to actual training with highly sophisticated role players and scenarios. We all know you don’t rise beyond your training, you generally fall to the limits of it. They can remove ground floor windows since windows can become doors easily. They can require students to use clear backpacks or install metal detectors with trained school officials to monitor them. Furthermore, these individuals can evaluate school IDs and create a strict policy of zero entrance without one. By far the best defense against a killer with a gun is a trained marksman with a firearm and the most appropriate legal person for this task is an armed school resource police officer. The suggestions continue with providing hardened barricades for classrooms that slide into place with ballistic protection. This way teachers and students don’t just have concealment, they have a true cover. All of these ideas are possible. Just remember, the longer you wait, the more time you give another mass murderer to formulate a plan. Timing is of the essence.
There are so many ways to truly respond, correction not respond but prevent, school murderers from making a name for themselves and leaving a trail of death behind them. During stressful times, it is easy to point fingers and resort to name-calling and emotional responses. After these events, our society seems to forget about this issue until the next one happens. We can’t let this type of event repeat itself. Think about the lives of the children who we’ve already lost, what their potential could have been, and the lives of those kids in our schools now. You cannot sit idly by and let this happen or you’re an accessory. No more virtue signaling, no more hollow promises, the time is now for true advocacy, action, and change. Get your community together, discuss a plan, act on it, and make it happen. Mankind has accomplished greater and more difficult problems, we can fix this one to prevent the next one.